Peter Mantripp lives and breathes boats.

As master of Lowestoft’s “vessel row” on Commercial Road, he is responsible for keeping 22 offshore service vessels in prime condition – and he’s also a former British powerboat racing champion.

But Peter’s proudest achievement in his 53 years is having one of North Star’s daughter craft named after his wife.

Seeing Alison Mantripp’s name gracing one of a fleet of the world’s first hybrid daughter craft was overwhelming for Peter.

It symbolised public recognition of nearly three decades of dedication to excellence, hard work, vision and commitment to the business and an industry that has become a family passion.

Peter Mantripp is master of Lowestoft’s ‘vessel row’ on Commercial Road (Image: North Star)

It marked the culmination of years hearing colleagues say, “Peter can do it” when something needed to be done across the Commercial Road operation.

“Our new CEO, Gitte Gard Talmo, visited Lowestoft, spent some time with me and later said she wanted to name the latest daughter craft after my wife, Alison,” explained Peter.

“She said it was a reward for all I have done for the company. I was so touched and moved that my service was being acknowledged like this.”

The Mantripp name on a North Star craft means even more now the couple’s only child, Thomas, 25, works for the company.

Peter resisted Thomas’s appeals to work with him until he had experience elsewhere.

But after a mechanical engineer apprenticeship at Hydramec and a few years as an offshore hydraulics engineer onshore, Peter said he “wore me down”, and Thomas joined North Star last year.

As well as sharing a love for engines, boats and water, the father and son also have champion status as powerboat racers in common, travelling all over the world together for the sport.

But it wasn’t water or vessels that drew a teenage Peter to a mechanical engineering career; a childhood love of tinkering with car engines led him to an apprenticeship at John Grose car dealership where his grandfather had been foreman.

“At 15, I bought an old Mini and used to work on it – I worked on anything, lawnmowers, bicycles. I always loved anything mechanical. As a child, I would collect bits and pieces from the rubbish tip at Ness Point, take them home to take apart and put them back together. I had a go-kart, a motorbike and a car, and would be forever working on them.”

But boats captured his interest from the first time he watched powerboat racing from the water’s edge at the world’s biggest venue for the sport in his hometown Oulton Broad.

The entranced four-year-old went on to win the British Powerboat Championship and remains a prominent figure in the national sport today as the longest serving commodore of the Lowestoft and Oulton Broad Motor Boat Club, where his son now races.

“From when I was 13, I used to go and help a racer, Gary Smith, who........

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